Cocaine-stuffed shipments of bananas ended up at Canadian grocery stores due to a drug-trafficking mix-up

• Canadian grocers received surprise shipments of bananas stuffed with cocaine.
• Police determined a trafficking mix-up landed them in the stores.
• The bricks of cocaine were large enough for everyone in their arrival city to get six doses.

Two grocers in British Columbia, Canada, were surprised in February 2019 when they opened shipments of bananas to find blocks of cocaine, according to the the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

After a nearly two-year investigation, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have determined that the boxes that arrived at the two stores were not intended to be delivered there, police said in a statement.

The drug section of the Kelowna RCMP Street Enforcement Unit worked collaboratively with the Canada Border Service Agency (CBSA) to determine that these shipments originated in Colombia, Cpl. Jeff Carroll of the Kelowna RCMP Drug Section said in a statement. Our investigation leads us to believe these illicit drugs were not meant to end up in the Central Okanagan, and arrived here in the Okanagan Valley as a result of a missed pickup at some point along the way.

The shipments originated in Colombia, but likely landed in the city of Kelowna due to a mix-up, police said.

If the boxes hadn't been intercepted by the confused grocers it could have introduced 800,000 doses of cocaine into the drug market, police said.

"That's enough contraband for every resident in the City of Kelowna to receive nearly 6 doses each," police said. "These two seizures in the BC southern interior no doubt saved precious lives across Canada."

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